THE VERGE - Last month, the dating app Hinge debuted voice prompts to daters' profiles. Instead of telling potential matches about themselves with text, they could do so with their voice. Each clip can be 30 seconds, and, at launch, Hinge said two out of three daters it polled thought voice would help them "better determine their chemistry" with someone. The prompts have gone viral on TikTok and Twitter, with people reposting them either because they're funny, cringe-worthy, or something in between. Hinge says 13% of new daters on the app build their profile with a voice prompt and that 46% of people on the app have listened to at least one voice prompt.
27 posts categorized "Reporters - Ashley Carman"
Hinge Cracked Getting Audio to Go Viral
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Facebook's Own Ads Reveal "Facebook Dating" Is Not That Hot
THE VERGE - Apr 16 - Facebook first introduced its dating product as a test in Colombia in 2018 and brought it Stateside in September 2019. Since then, the company hasn't said much. However, The Verge has found multiple screenshots that suggest the actual size of Facebook's dating product isn't all that large but that it's growing. The company runs in-house ads that advertise the number of users it has in specific regions. In the country's largest city, New York, the company advertised 278K singles "currently dating" in the city this week. In Indianapolis, it advertised 43K people, and in Ottawa, Canada, it claimed to have 24K.
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Garbo & Tinder Background Checks Update
THE VERGE - Mar 15 - Tinder will soon let users run a background check on a potential date. Match Group announced an investment in Garbo, a nonprofit allows people to run background checks with only their first name and phone number or full name. The investment, of which Match didn't disclose the amount (a seven-figure investment), will help make the group's tech available to Match's users, starting with Tinder. Garbo says it collects "public records and reports of violence or abuse, including arrests, convictions, restraining orders, harassment, and other violent crimes. Notably, Garbo said it won't publicize drug possession charges. The company says drug-related offenses don't meaningfully predict "gender-based violence". Garbo also doesn't disclose traffic violations. The background checks on Tinder won't be free, but Match is working with Garbo to figure out how to price them so they’re accessible to most users.
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Tinder to Allow People to Get Rid of Their Geography Filters Completely
THE VERGE - May 21 - Tinder will soon be testing Global Mode, a new option for daters to opt in to allow their profiles to show up around the world, regardless of where they live. They'll also be able to view and match with people who live in other countries. The feature sounds similar to, but is different from, Tinder's paid option Passport, which lets people select a location and swipe in that place. With Global Mode, people's profiles will populate throughout the world and it's free. The pandemic, Tinder says, pushed the company to speed up its timeline for getting rid of geographic filters.
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Tinder Starts Testing Live In-app Trivia
THE VERGE - May 9 - Tinder is now testing a new interactive video feature in the form of live trivia. The test will be rolling out to an undisclosed percentage of users and is designed to help Tinder experiment with live video while also matching people up. Screenshots appear to suggest that the game will be between a group of people who can broadcast live. A live chat is also present.
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Tinder to Launch in-App Video Chats Later This Year
THE VERGE - May 6 - Tinder is going to launch its own in-app, one-on-one video chats later this year. Harassment and abuse could be difficult to screen for on video, as opposed to text-based messaging. But presumably, the team is either building its own offensive image detection system or looking to a third party to provide one.
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Tinder Offers Tinder Passport for Free
THEVERGE - Mar 20 - Starting next week, Tinder is making its Passport feature free for all users through April 30th. Passport allows people to pay to swipe abroad wherever they want. It usually costs money to access through either Tinder Gold or Tinder Plus.
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Hinge to Pay Users $100 to Go on a Date This Weekend
THE VERGE - Mar 4 - Hinge is going to give people in the US a $100 Visa online gift card to go on date. The company has $25k set aside for the promotion.
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Swiping Meant Dating This Decade, and It's Time for a Change
THE VERGE - Dec 11 - As we close out the decade, it might be time to retire the swipe we once knew. The swipe was born only seven years ago, and in that time, it's conquered online dating and made it mainstream. Dating apps are expected to top 25M users in the US this year, and as of 2017, 39% of heterosexual couples in the US said they met online, up from 22% in 2009, according to a recent study. Tinder lowered the barriers to online dating and gamified it. As we enter 2020, the apps seem to be finding out that the swipe alone is no longer cutting it. They're differentiating themselves by creating slower experiences that result in real dates with real people, presumably picking up on daters' wants. Even Tinder is experimenting with ways to augment the swipe and give people more context than just a yes or no. It launched Swipe Night, an interactive video feature, this year that gives daters the option to swipe on people who made similar decisions to them during the experience. The League is using automated, two-minute video calls to help daters filter through matches. New dating app Bounce concentrate on the real-life part of dating by giving people no room to talk and instead focus on the meetup. The app is only live at specific times.
by Ashley Carman
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Dating App The League Will Pair up Users for Two-minute Live Video Dates
THE VERGE - Nov 19 - The League, a dating app that requires LinkedIn verification to join, is launching its version of speed dating next month: two-minute video dates that take place within the app. It's called League Live, and the company will allow people to opt in to the video dates, which take place at 9PM local time on Sundays starting on December 1st. CEO Amanda Bradford says that, in initial beta testing, users between the ages of 35 and 40 liked the feature most, likely because their time is at more of a premium. Although the feature is available to both paying and free users, Bradford says only users who have a high "League Score" will have access. The League Score is measured by factors like how often they log on, whether they’ve been reported by other users, and how complete their profile is.
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Tinder Lite to Launch in Vietnam
THE VERGE - July 10 - Tinder Lite app is 25 times smaller than the main app, and while it maintains the core functionality, like swiping, it nixes more data-heavy ones, like the Feed. The idea is that Tinder Lite is faster, requires less battery life, and reduces data usage. For now, Tinder Lite users can't upgrade to a Tinder Plus or Gold subscription within the app, but the company says it plans to do so over time. The app will be available through Google Play in Vietnam in the "coming weeks" and will subsequently come to other areas in Southeast Asia and South America.
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Tinder Co-founder's Lawsuit Against Tinder Parent Company Moves Closer to a Trial
THE VERGE - June 14 - The judge rejects IAC / Match Group's motion to dismiss Sean Rad's case, allowing Rad and his co-plaintiffs to pursue their allegations that Match Group and IAC purposely undervalued Tinder in an effort to avoid paying out billions of dollars in stock options to the original dating app team. It's still unclear whether former plaintiffs like Rosette Pambakian, who alleged sexual misconduct on the part of IAC executives, will be able to participate in the lawsuit. She and three other plaintiffs withdrew from the lawsuit over an arbitration clause, but "without prejudice," which means that they could theoretically rejoin.
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A New Tinder Test Lets People Pay to Turn Read Receipts on For Specific Chats
THE VERGE - May 31 - Tinder is testing two features that might entice more people to pay for the dating app. The app is offering some subscribers the ability to pay to view read receipts on chats, as well as the opportunity to break the algorithm and push their profile to the top of people's potential match stacks.
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Match Group Paid Millions in Stock Awards That Could Help Tinder co-Founder's $2 Billion Lawsuit
THE VERGE - May 8 - Match Group had to pay Tinder employees $9.4M in stock compensation this quarter because of the app's rapid growth. That might be consequential in the $2B lawsuit the company faces from Tinder co-founder Sean Rad. Rad claims Match purposely undervalued Tinder in an effort to avoid paying out billions of dollars in stock to the team's original employees. An independent valuation earlier this year valued Tinder at $10B, which would trigger performance-based payouts. This new valuation, which comes only two years after Match valued Tinder at $3B, could lend Rad's case some merit.
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Tinder Hires a New Chief Product Officer to Keep College Kids on the App
THE VERGE - Apr 1 - Ravi Mehta comes to Tinder from Facebook where he was the product director for youth engagement and helped develop Lasso, Facebook's TikTok competitor. Tinder says Mehta has "spearheaded efforts to understand how Gen Z (users between ages 18 and 22) spends their time online and identified key product opportunities for this demographic." Last year, Tinder released Tinder U, its college student-only service that requires users to have an active .edu email address and be on campus. This year, it also developed its Spring Break Mode that lets Tinder U users select their spring break vacation spot and then swipe on potential matches ahead of arriving.
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